Chapter 5
Blake
“Hey, Blake, there’s someone here to see you.”
Looking up from my laptop, I find Whitney poking her head into the doorway of my office, her long black hair falling over her shoulder.
She’s been my assistant since I opened the brokerage five years ago.
She’s also my younger sister and handles all of Skye’s billing for the construction company, too.
Skye is our older brother, and owns Frenshaw Construction, the company he and I started building from the ground up as soon as he turned eighteen.
“I don’t have anyone scheduled this afternoon,” I tell her. “Is it a client?”
Normally, if one of the realtors needs anything, they just come right up to my office.
I try to have an open door policy as much as possible.
It’s how I make sure I continue to run a tight ship.
There’s too much to lose if they start doing questionable shit behind my back, so I always encourage them to come to me before doing questionable shit so I can decide if the payoff at the end is worth it. Usually, it’s not.
“No,” she responds, but there’s a sparkle to her eyes as she says it. “It’s a woman named Tracy Smith. She said she’s here about a job. I told her you weren’t hiring, but she’s very adamant about seeing you.”
A grunt lodges in my throat. My brokerage, The Frenshaw Group, is one of the top real estate brokerages in the country.
Which means I have a consistent flow of people trying to join, and I always turn them down.
If I’m interested in bringing someone new onboard, I’ll reach out to them, not the other way around.
I won’t sacrifice what I’ve built on some incompetent nobody.
“Give her my email and she can send her resume,” I tell Whitney, offering her a means of getting rid of the woman. It also translates to: I’ll never look at it and Tracy will never hear from me.
Whitney is one of the few people I have on payroll, and all fifteen of my current real estate agents were recruited by me.
I never let anyone in without thorough vetting, and I certainly don’t take walk-ins.
Which Whitney knows, so I’m a little surprised she even told me about Tracy to begin with.
She could have just said I wasn’t in the office, for Christ’s sake.
Whitney’s lips tip up in a half grin before she disappears down the hallway back to her desk.
My office is on the second floor, at the back of the building.
I chose this one as my own, not because it’s the largest, but because it’s the most secluded.
While I may have an open door policy, I prefer peace and quiet so I can get shit done without distraction.
There’s a few smaller offices up here on the second floor, as well as a conference room, and Whitney’s desk up front near the staircase, but usually it’s just the two of us up here unless the agents are using the conference room.
Most of the realtors elect to use the office’s downstairs if they bother coming to the office at all.
They’re bigger and closer to the kitchenette, which has an unlimited supply of coffee and alcohol.
I bought the building after The Frenshaw Group’s first year in business.
It was just myself and three other realtors at the time, and we quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the real estate market.
It was after that first year that we also transitioned into focusing solely on luxury real estate.
There’s enough high value property around here to keep us busy into eternity, and with a little hard work and ass-kissing, we became the go-to for the entire tri-state area.
By my third year in business, I had offices in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland.
But I kept our main office here, in Alexandria.
Returning to my laptop, I resume looking over the land surveys Skye had sent me before Whitney’s interruption.
Skye and I have been eyeing some land to put a housing development on.
It’s a gorgeous, wooded nature area with a large creek running through it, and we could make a killing by building luxury homes on some larger lots.
Only issue is that it’s not zoned for residential use right now—which is something else I’ve been working on.
A little wining and dining goes a long way with local officials who want to feel more powerful than they really are.
“Hey, B,” Whitney croons, and I look up to see the face of innocence swaying in my doorway.
I fucking hate when she calls me B, and the little pain in my ass knows it.
Which is probably why she’s got her hands clasped in front of her as she peers at me with the mock innocence of a dog that just took a shit on the rug.
“Hey, Whit,” I retort with her equally hated nickname.
“She won’t leave.”
“What do you mean, she won’t leave?”
Whitney strolls over to my desk, bracing her hands flat on it as she leans toward me.
“I mean, I told her to email her resume, and you’d look at it.
She said she’d rather talk to you in person.
I then told her you weren’t available, and she said, ‘That’s okay, I’ll wait’.
” Whitney raises her voice as she says this in a mock impersonation of Tracy.
“So, then,” Whitney continues, “I told her you wouldn’t be available at all today.
And she just said, ‘That’s fine, I can wait until he leaves and catch him on the way out’.
” She throws her hands up like she’s exasperated, yet her face reveals otherwise.
There’s a tilt to her lips, telling me she’s impressed, or more likely, she’s getting a kick out of this woman, who’s quickly becoming a pain in my ass.
“So, I don’t know what you want me to do at this point, because she’s not going anywhere. ”
“Where is she right now?” I ask, scratching at the stubble on my jaw and trying not to let my annoyance show.
“Sitting on the couch by my desk. She even took off her heels, Blake. Her heels. Then she asked if I already had lunch and offered to order us food.” She grins at me now. “She’s not leaving anytime soon.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, rising from my desk and loosening my tie in the process.
I make my way toward the office door, Whitney trailing behind. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“Getting rid of my problem.”
“So, you’re going to interview her?”
“No.”
Whitney lets out a snort from behind me. “Good luck to you if you think she’s leaving here without an interview.”
I ignore the quip and stalk down the hallway. Never have I let someone worm their way into my business, and I sure as shit am not changing that today. I’ve sacrificed too much to get to where I am, and I won’t let anything or anyone compromise what I’ve created.
Reaching the end of the hallway, I stop short when I round the corner of Whitney’s desk. There, sitting on the couch in a bright yellow blazer, like a ray of fucking sunshine, is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
And so far, the most annoying.
She’s got her feet carefully tucked up under her, a form fitting white dress underneath her blazer. Long, golden waves fall around her face as she peers down at the phone in her hand, and when she looks up, I’m met with baby blue eyes that could rival the prettiest of spring waters.
Her face alights with a radiant smile as she stands and walks barefoot over to me, her hand extended. “You must be Blake,” she says, her voice like honey. “Tracy Smith. It’s so nice to meet you.”
After an awkward moment of me just fucking standing there, a throat clears behind me, and I snap out of my trance. I catch Whitney sliding behind her desk out of the corner of my eye, and force myself to pull it back together.
Reaching out, I grab Tracy’s hand firmer than necessary, annoyed with myself for getting caught up in her looks and forgetting I’m here to send her away.
She squeezes my hand back even harder. To the point I’m the one pulling my hand away and breaking contact.
So, this is how she wants to do this.
A slow smirk finds my lips. “I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but that wouldn’t quite be the truth.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s because meeting me isn’t just a pleasure, it’s transformative.” The corner of her mouth twitches, and I can’t look away from the red painted on those full lips.
“Transformative?” I mutter.
“Yes, because you’ll never be the same again. And if you give me fifteen minutes of your time, I’ll tell you why.”
I force my eyes from her lips, only to catch those baby blues. I’m not sure those are any better. “Look, I appreciate the effort of showing up here to talk in person, but I’m not hiring right now. If you want to email me your resume, I’ll keep it on file in case something opens up.”
“Oh, I’m not here to get a job from you,” she says, grinning up at me. Her head just barely reaches my shoulders, yet she somehow manages to carry herself like she’s ten feet tall. “I’m here to offer you a position to help me.”
“And why would I work for you?”
“Because I have an offer you can’t refuse?” She winks at me.
I huff a breath. I don’t have time for this shit. “Not interested,” I say, and turn to head back to my office, only to hear her footsteps close behind.
“That’s because you haven’t heard my offer yet,” she protests.
I stop abruptly halfway down the hall and turn back to her. She damn near collides with my chest in the process. “Are you always this goddamn persistent?”
“Yes. And it’s why you’ll love having me as a partner.” She pops a hip, angling her head to the side as though she’s contemplating some great mystery of the universe. “Maybe partner isn’t the right word. Think of me as a protégé.”
“A protégé.” For fuck’s sake, this woman.
I resume walking toward my office. She follows me in, unfortunately, and makes herself comfortable in one of the armchairs in the small seating area. Usually the furniture in here never gets used, as I prefer to work and conduct any business at my desk.